MEP insists US visa should go

Nationlist MEP Simon Busuttil called on the European Commission to step up pressure on the United States to remove the visa requirement for Maltese citizens to enter the US.

Currently, the US requires visas for citizens from nine of the ten new EU countries, including Malta, as well as a tenth member, Greece. The Commission has long been calling on the US to remove the visa requirement so that citizens from all 25 EU countries would be treated in the same way.

To step up pressure, the European Commission is now considering the imposition of a visa requirement for US diplomats travelling to Europe, by way of sanction.

"In the EU there are no first-class and second-class citizens. We all have the same rights." Dr Busuttil said. "So the US should treat us all the same."

Dr Busuttil said that he has long been receiving complaints from Maltese citizens protesting against this unequal treatment. Citizens also complain on the procedure in applying for a US visa as well as the cost.

As a result, he has brought up this issue in the European Parliament and tabled parliamentary questions on the matter.

"People feel that if they are good enough to be EU citizens, they should be good enough to travel to the US without a visa. Just like citizens from 15 other EU countries. And they are right," Dr Busuttil said.

The US is still refusing to lift the visa requirement as it insists that the new member states, including Malta, still do not fulfil all of the necessary criteria imposed by the US congress. This opinion is not shared by the new member states.

On its part, Malta, together with the other affected member states, is pressuring the Commission to introduce wider counter-sanctions by reintroducing visa requirements for all US citizens visiting Europe.

To qualify for a visa-free regime, the new member states are required to offer reciprocal privileges to American citizens, have had a non-immigrant refusal rate of less than three per cent for the previous year; certify that the country issues machine-readable passports, have a programme to incorporate biometric identifiers into the passports and certify that it reports the theft of blank passports on a timely basis to the US authorities.